docs.forestry.md

The Obsidian Digital Garden plugin and Forestry.md serve the same goal — publishing Obsidian notes to the web — but split along a clear line: the plugin is a free, open source tool you set up and manage yourself, while Forestry.md is a cloud service positioned as a one-click alternative for people who want to avoid technical hassle. Choose the plugin if you're comfortable configuring and hosting your own site; choose Forestry.md if you'd rather not deal with setup at all.

The core difference

What the plugin gives you

According to the plugin's own site, it lets you publish notes directly from Obsidian to the internet. Its stated strengths are that it is feature packed, highly configurable, and hackable, and that you can enable or disable features on a per-note basis. That per-note control is what lets it work either as a full digital garden or as a simple note-sharing solution.

The trade-off is implicit in "configurable and hackable": you own the setup. The site itself is powered by the plugin, and community examples listed there include Edav Garden, ajy.co, Teresa Watts, That Other Dev, Hermitage, IceWind.Quest, Craft Engineer, DigiGarden, and notes.ole.dev — useful reference points if you want to see what a self-managed garden can look like before committing.

What Forestry.md offers

Forestry.md is presented as a newly launched cloud service for hosting your digital garden "without any technical hassle," with a one-click setup. The site frames it as the option to check out if you would prefer that. The available material does not state pricing, so treat cost as something to confirm on the service itself rather than assuming it is free.

How to decide

Ask one question first: do you want to run the publishing stack, or just publish?

• Pick the plugin if you want a free, open source tool, you're comfortable with configuration, and per-note feature control matters to you. Expect to spend time on setup and hosting.
• Pick Forestry.md if the setup work is the part you want to skip and a one-click hosted option is worth it to you. Confirm current pricing and terms directly, since the source material doesn't cover them.

If you're unsure, start with the plugin's Getting Started and Features pages to gauge how much configuration is involved. If that reads as more work than you want, Forestry.md is the intended shortcut.

Obsidian Digital Garden is a free and open source publishing tool for Obsidian that lets you publish your notes directly from Obsidian to the internet. It is aimed at people who keep notes in Obsidian and want a public, browsable version of them without leaving the app or migrating content to a separate CMS. You can run it as a full digital garden or as a simple note sharing solution, and features can be enabled or disabled on a per-note basis.

What it does

The plugin turns selected Obsidian notes into a website. Instead of exporting files and uploading them manually, you publish from inside Obsidian, and the plugin handles the transformation of your notes into web pages.

Two common ways people use it:

• Full digital garden — a growing, interconnected set of public notes with links between them, meant to be explored rather than read linearly.
• Simple note sharing — publish only a handful of notes you want to send to someone, keeping the rest private.

Because features are configurable per note, you do not have to make an all-or-nothing decision about your vault. A note can be published or kept private individually.

Key characteristics

The "highly configurable and hackable" description matters if you want to adjust how your garden looks or behaves rather than accept a fixed template. It also means setup can involve more decisions than a one-click service.

Hosting options

The plugin itself is the publishing tool; you still need somewhere for the site to live. The project points to two paths:

• Self-managed setup — use the plugin and configure hosting yourself. This is the free, open source route and gives you the most control.
• Forestry.md cloud service — a newly launched hosted option described as a one-click setup for hosting your digital garden "without any technical hassle." Choose this if you would rather not deal with the technical configuration.

The page does not state pricing for Forestry.md, so treat cost as something to confirm on that service directly rather than assuming it is free.

Seeing what others have built

The project site itself is powered by the Digital Garden plugin, so it doubles as a working example. For a broader, community-maintained list, the page points to the Obsidian Gallery maintained by GitHub user Jiri Sifalda, which tracks Digital Gardens created by the community. Featured sites listed include Edav Garden, ajy.co, Teresa Watts, That Other Dev, Hermitage, IceWind.Quest, Craft Engineer, DigiGarden, and notes.ole.dev.

Browsing a few of these is the fastest way to judge whether the output style matches what you want before committing to setup.

How to decide if it fits

Choose Obsidian Digital Garden if:

• Your notes already live in Obsidian and you want to publish without switching tools.
• You want per-note control over what becomes public.
• You are comfortable with a configurable, hackable tool — or willing to use the Forestry.md hosted option to skip the technical work.
• You want either a long-term digital garden or occasional note sharing from the same setup.

Look elsewhere if you need a fully managed, zero-configuration publishing platform with no hosting decisions, or if you do not use Obsidian as your note source.

Getting started

The project page links to Getting Started, Features, and Plugins sections, plus a Discord server for support. Start with Getting Started for the setup path, then check Features to see what can be toggled per note. If setup feels like more than you want to handle, evaluate the Forestry.md cloud service as the lower-effort alternative.

The Obsidian Digital Garden plugin is a free and open source publishing tool that lets you publish notes directly from Obsidian to the internet. Its main draw is that it is "feature packed" while staying highly configurable and hackable, and it lets you enable or disable features on a per-note basis. That combination makes it usable both as a full-fledged digital garden and as a simple note-sharing solution.

Core publishing capability

The plugin's central function is direct publishing: you write in Obsidian and push notes to the web without leaving the app. This is the feature that defines the tool — it turns your vault into a website rather than requiring a separate site-building workflow.

Configurability and hackability

The plugin is described as highly configurable and hackable. In practice this means:

• You can shape how the published site behaves rather than accepting one fixed output.
• Because it is open source, you can inspect and modify it if the default behavior does not fit your needs.
• Configuration is a first-class part of the tool, not an afterthought.

If you want a publish button with no decisions to make, this flexibility is more than you need. If you want control over how your garden looks and behaves, it is the point.

Per-note feature toggling

Features can be enabled and disabled on a per-note basis. This is the detail that separates the plugin from simpler "publish everything" tools: you decide note by note what gets which treatment, so a single vault can mix fully featured garden pages with plain shared notes.

Two ways to use it

The same feature set supports two distinct use cases:

You do not have to commit to one. The per-note controls let you start with simple sharing and expand toward a garden, or run both side by side.

Hosting: self-managed vs. one-click

The plugin itself is the publishing tool. If you would rather not handle the technical setup, Forestry.md is a separate cloud service for hosting your digital garden with a one-click setup. The plugin and the hosting service are distinct choices: the plugin covers publishing and configuration, while Forestry.md addresses hosting convenience.

Seeing it in practice

The project site itself runs on the Digital Garden plugin, so it doubles as a working example. For a broader, regularly updated list of gardens built by the community, the site points to the Obsidian Gallery maintained by GitHub user Jiri Sifalda. Named featured sites include Edav Garden, ajy.co, Teresa Watts, That Other Dev, Hermitage, IceWind.Quest, Craft Engineer, DigiGarden, and notes.ole.dev — useful if you want to see how others have configured the plugin before setting up your own.

The Obsidian Digital Garden plugin is for Obsidian users who want to publish notes to the web without leaving the app, and who are comfortable with a configurable, open source tool rather than a one-click hosted service. It fits two overlapping groups: people building a full digital garden, and people who just want a simple way to share individual notes. If you want zero technical setup, the same project points to a separate cloud service, Forestry.md, instead.

The core fit: publish from inside Obsidian

The plugin is described as a free and open source publishing tool for Obsidian. You publish your notes directly from Obsidian to the internet. That single fact drives most of the "who should use this" answer:

• You already write in Obsidian. There is no separate editor, export step, or CMS to maintain. The notes you keep are the notes you publish.
• You want publishing to be part of your note-taking flow, not a parallel workflow.
• You are fine with a plugin-based setup rather than a hosted dashboard.

If your notes live somewhere else, or you want a traditional website builder, this is not the natural starting point.

You want configurability and hackability

The plugin is described as "feature packed" but also "highly configurable and hackable." That phrasing is a signal about the intended user:

The trade-off is direct: flexibility and control come with configuration work. A user who wants a fixed theme and no decisions will find a hosted service easier.

You want per-note control

A distinguishing feature is that you can enable and disable features on a per-note basis. This matters for a specific kind of user:

• Someone who keeps private and public notes in the same vault and wants to publish selectively.
• Someone who wants some notes to behave like full garden entries and others to be plain shared notes.
• Someone who does not want an all-or-nothing publish switch.

If every note you write is meant to be public and uniform, this granularity is nice but not essential.

You want either a digital garden or simple note sharing

The plugin is positioned for two use cases at once: "a full fledged digital garden" or "a simple note sharing solution." That means it suits:

• Gardeners who want a growing, linked collection of public notes.
• Sharers who mainly want to send a link to a note without building a whole site.

You do not have to decide up front which one you are. The same tool covers both, which lowers the cost of starting small and expanding later.

You prefer free and open source

The plugin is free and open source. For users who weight that heavily — whether for cost, transparency, or the ability to inspect and modify the code — this is a primary reason to choose it. Note that the source material describes the plugin itself as free and open source; it does not state terms for the separate Forestry.md cloud service, so treat those as distinct decisions.

Who should look elsewhere

• You want one-click setup with no technical hassle. The project explicitly offers Forestry.md as a cloud service "for hosting your digital garden without any technical hassle," aimed at people who prefer a one-click setup. If that describes you, the cloud service is the intended path, not the plugin.
• You do not use Obsidian. The entire value proposition is publishing from within Obsidian.
• You want a fully managed, opinionated platform and are not interested in configuring or hacking anything.

A quick way to decide

Ask yourself three questions:

1. Do I write in Obsidian and want to publish from there? If no, stop here.
2. Do I want control over features, including per-note toggles? If no, a simpler hosted option may serve you better.
3. Am I okay with a free, open source, configurable tool rather than a one-click service? If no, look at Forestry.md.

Three yeses means the plugin is aimed at you. Any no points toward a different tool or the hosted alternative.

Seeing what it produces

The site itself is powered by the Digital Garden plugin, and it lists community examples including Edav Garden, ajy.co, Teresa Watts, That Other Dev, Hermitage, IceWind.Quest, Craft Engineer, DigiGarden, and notes.ole.dev. An updated community list is maintained in the Obsidian Gallery by GitHub user Jiri Sifalda. Browsing a few of these is the fastest way to judge whether the output style matches what you want to publish.

The Obsidian Digital Garden plugin's own site is the starting point: it links to Getting Started, Features, and Plugins sections, plus a Discord server for community support. For examples, it points to the Obsidian Gallery maintained by GitHub user Jiri Sifalda, and lists featured sites built with the plugin. The site itself is published with the plugin, so it doubles as a working reference.

Getting started resources

The plugin is described as a free and open source publishing tool for Obsidian that publishes notes directly from Obsidian to the internet. It is feature packed, highly configurable and hackable, and lets you enable or disable features on a per-note basis — usable either as a full digital garden or as a simple note sharing solution.

From the site, the entry points are:

• Getting Started — the setup path for publishing your notes.
• Features — what the plugin can do, including per-note feature toggles.
• Plugins — related plugin information.
• Discord server — community support.

If you would rather skip the technical setup, the site notes that Forestry.md has launched as a cloud service offering one-click setup for hosting your digital garden without technical hassle. That is the main fork in the road: self-host the open source plugin, or use the hosted service.

Example digital gardens

The site states it is itself powered by the Digital Garden plugin, so you can inspect a live implementation directly. For a broader, updated list, it directs readers to the Obsidian Gallery maintained by GitHub user Jiri Sifalda, where community-created digital gardens are collected. You can also submit your own garden there.

Featured sites listed on the page:

How to use these resources

1. Open the plugin site and go to Getting Started to follow the publishing setup.
2. Check Features to decide whether per-note toggles and the configurable/hackable approach fit how you want to publish.
3. Join the Discord server if you get stuck or want community input.
4. Browse the Obsidian Gallery and the featured sites above to see real layouts and structures before committing to your own.
5. If setup effort is the blocker, evaluate the Forestry.md cloud service as the one-click alternative.

A practical check before choosing: open two or three featured sites and note how they organize notes, then compare that against what the plugin's per-note feature toggles let you do.